~ Get to know the author and creator of the Drabble comic strip..

I’ll be giving a chalk-talk in Mission Viejo, CA on Thursday, November 14 at 7:00 pm in the city council room. It’s located at 200 Civic Center, across from the library, near the corner of La Paz and Marguerite. A “chalk-talk” is what they call it when a cartoonist makes a speech in public. (Many of us talk to ourselves in public, but this is more fancy.) A cartoonist usually draws while he or she talks, hence the term “chalk-talk”. Except nobody has chalkboards anymore. I guess “dry-erase talk” doesn’t have the same ring to it. Actually, I use a pad of paper and a magic marker anyway, so to be specific, I’ll be giving a “magic-marker-on-a- pad- of- paper” talk. That sounds good. I’ll also bring a bunch of strips so people can look at them up close. The talk is free, so that’s a good thing at least! I’ll be signing copies of “Wally’s Wienerful World of Golf”, and “A Drabble Family Christmas Tale.” It should be fun!

I’ve been listening to Vin Scully broadcast L.A. Dodger games since I was a kid. He’s really an amazing announcer. First class all the way. He calls games alone, with no color man. He tells all kinds of stories about the players, the team and the sport of baseball. I would rather listen to Vin broadcast a game on the radio than see the game on TV without Vin. So I drew a strip about that very fact recently, and got some attention from people who feel the same way. Here’s the strip and here’s a story about it
from a baseball blogger!

I used to have my own studio to work in. It’s kind of a nice little room in my home with a drawing table and computer desk. My wife does most of the computer work on Drabble, so she now works in my studio and I work at the kitchen table. Not that we don’t get along or anything, it’s just that the scratching of my pen on the drawing board annoys her and her choice of music to annoys me. I like Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. She likes Christmas music. I like Christmas music too, but mostly in December. It’s not even Halloween yet! Right now I’m sitting on the couch in my living room, and I can hear the Christmas music playing in my former studio! Maybe I’ll go sit in my car for a while.

There is a show every summer in Laguna Beach, CA called The Pageant Of The Masters. It’s been happening every summer for over 70 years. It’s a great show. They recreate famous works of art onstage using actors and scenery. It’s pretty remarkable! Anyway, I thought it would great material for DRABBLE. I did a storyline a couple of years ago where Norman portrayed Washington crossing the Delaware, and his cell phone went off. Turned out pretty funny, so I did another series this year. This time, Norman portrays the farmer in American Gothic (You know, the elderly couple standing in front of their house, the man holding a pitchfork). I always assumed that couple was married, but now I’m hearing that they were supposed to be father and daughter. In the strip, I called them husband and wife, and boy am I hearing about it! I really should have researched it a little more! Too late to change
it now. This is going to be a long couple of weeks!

Jonathan Winters was one of my favorite comedians. I had his comedy albums and enthusiastically looked forward to his TV appearances. I met him when I was about 12. My mother worked as a waitress at a restaurant right next to CBS Television City in Hollywood, where Jonathan did his show in the late ’60’s. On school holidays, I would come to work with her and hang out at the nearby Farmers Market. One day, she introduced me to Mr. Winters, who had come in for lunch. She told him that I liked to draw cartoons. He was a respected artist, and on his paper placemat, he doodled a soldier hollering “Move ‘em out!”. He signed it at gave it to me. I still have it after all these years, food stains and all!
That day, I got to go over to the studio to sit in the audience and watch a rehearsal of his show. After a couple of hours, I had to leave, but didn’t know the way out. I had been escorted in into the audience from the backstage area, so that’s the way I exited: walking up the steps and across the stage and out through the curtains. It never occurred to me until several years later that I had probably disrupted the rehearsal! I was kind of a dumb kid.